Life & Wisdom Quote by Kenneth Anger

Anger isn`t just complaining about a cautious copyeditor; he`s staging a fight over who gets to decide what truth is allowed to look like on the page. The phrase "censorship by the lawyer" is a neat inversion: the censor isn`t the state, or the church, or some cartoon moralist clutching pearls. It`s a professional class whose power is procedural, not ideological. That`s the point. Legal review doesn`t have to argue that a claim is false or unfair; it only has to make it expensive.

The subtext is pure Anger: the artist as outlaw, hemmed in by institutions that claim neutrality while policing the boundaries of speech. When he says "publishing firm", he`s naming the quiet corporate reality behind literary risk-taking. Publishers love the aura of transgression right up until transgression comes with a lawsuit. "They don`t seem to want to take too many risks with living people" lands as both practical and mordant. Dead subjects are safe because they can`t sue; living subjects can retaliate, and that threat turns editorial judgment into risk management.

Context matters because Anger`s work has always thrived on proximity to the litigious: fame, gossip, sexuality, power. He`s talking about a culture where biography and exposé are marketable, but only if they`re sanitized enough to survive counsel. The intent isn`t merely to vent; it`s to force a choice: publish the dangerous version or admit the book is being co-authored by fear.